UP soon to have fine dining restaurants on rail coaches

For food connoisseurs looking for some unique fine dining experience, the railways will soon provide a new food joint with an unmatched ambience.

As part of non-fare revenue opportunity in Uttar Pradesh, the Indian Railways (IRs) is giving its scrapped or discarded train coaches on a lease for three to five years to restaurant owners, who have liberty to turn the coaches into an exotic-looking restaurants.

Apart from this, the IR is going to start an open-air railway museum on its premises, which would enlighten visitors about railways history and previous mechanisms that helped India's largest transport organisation to operate on mammoth scale.

According to railway officials, stations like Charbagh, Gomti Nagar, Sidhauli (Sitapur), Gorakhpur, Varanasi junction, Varanasi city, Agra Cantt and Jhansi will have coach restaurants within one or two months. Currently, only NER's Banaras and Izzatnagar railway stations in Uttar Pradesh are operating 'restaurant on wheels'.

Ashok Kumar, PRO of Varanasi division of NER zone, said, "The concept of restaurant on wheels has received overwhelming response from the public. At Agra Cantt, the coach is being given a makeover of royal style, with 'Jharokha' windows, vintage lamps and royal style dining table sets. The coach is expected to accommodate nearly four dozen visitors at a time. Apart from that, Agra Cantt station premises with 15,000 sqft area will be used to construct an open-air railway museum."

Divisional commercial manager of Agra railway division, Prashasti Srivastava said: "Railways will provide all vintage equipment used in earlier train operations along with historical text to the restaurant and hotel operator, who will then use it to build an open-air museum. While museum visits will be free of cost, dining in a restaurant on wheels will be a paid service."

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